UK

The intense public discussion on anti-Semitism in the UK Labour party has almost entirely overshadowed the problem of the huge risk a Corbyn-led government would represent to the Western world. Corbyn, a terrorist sympathizer, and various problematic associates of his would gain access to intelligence gathered by the British security services. How safe would it then be for other Western countries to continue to share high-level intelligence with their British colleagues?

Over the past two and a half years a major debate has developed about anti-Semitism in the British Labour party. Jeremy Corbyn, the party leader, is a supporter of murderous and even genocidal terrorists and is a supporter of Holocaust deniers and distorters. He is furthermore an anti-Israel inciter and part-time anti-Semite. Many insights can be gleaned from the Labour anti-Semitism debate, and several are crucially important to the UK and the Western world at large.

An analysis of the British Labour party under the chairmanship of Jeremy Corbyn provides a panoramic view of many aspects of socialist anti-Jewish hate-mongering. The most extreme comments come disproportionately from Muslims, a subject that is taboo for the British media. The incitement is accompanied by a whitewashing of the party’s anti-Semitism problem, a whitewashing that is supported by a great majority of its members. The ongoing hate-mongering in the party has led to some unprecedented reactions by the British Jewish leadership.

The recent poisoning on British soil of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer who acted as a double agent for the UK’s intelligence services, and his daughter Yulia with a very rare nerve agent of the Novichok type appears almost certainly to have been conducted by the Russians. While the attack is part of a long chain of similar incidents, it was an overwhelming event diplomatically, politically, practically, and in terms of intelligence. Two similar incidents in London exhibited common elements linking them to the Skripal attack. Together, they shed light on the apparatus that might be responsible.

There is much logic in the British desire to leave the EU, but its approach to the Brexit negotiations needs to be far more sophisticated. There is a strong similarity between the Brexit deal and huge transnational corporate merger and acquisition negotiations. Given their far greater experience in complex financial negotiations and how to prepare for them, investment bankers could have a major advantage in assisting the politicians acting on behalf of the UK in the Brexit negotiations.

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Moderate leaders warn that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may turn from a national conflict into a religious one. Right-wing leaders claim it has been a religious conflict from the start. Both approaches have been applied to the Temple Mount crisis, and both are affected by a totalist perception of the understanding of the religious imperative.

The concept of “settler colonialism” has been applied with almost unique vehemence against Israel. But the fact that Jews are the indigenous population of the Southern Levant can be proved with ease. In contrast, historical and genealogical evidence shows Palestinians descend primarily from three primary groups: Muslim invaders, Arab immigrants, and local converts to Islam. The Muslim conquest of Byzantine Palestine in the 7th century CE is a textbook example of settler-colonialism, as is subsequent immigration, particularly during the 19th and 20th centuries under the Ottoman and British Empires. The application of the concept to Jews and Zionism by Palestinians is both ironic and unhelpful.

North Korea’s nuclearization has implications for Israel’s nuclear deterrence posture. There are several plausible means by which a nuclear conflict could arise in the Middle East. It may be time to consider a phase-out of Israel’s “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” and to focus Israeli planning around evaluations of enemy rationality.

Former PM Ehud Barak’s arguments in favor of withdrawal from Judea and Samaria undercut Israel’s security and are a departure from the Oslo Accords’ security vision. Israel would be wise to present President Trump with actual facts on this issue.

Many American detractors of Israel begin by citing that Israel receives the lion’s share of US military aid. The very suggestion conjures the demon of an all-powerful Israel lobby that has turned the US Congress into its pawn. But these figures, while reflecting official direct US military aid, are almost meaningless in comparison to the real costs and benefits of US military aid – above all, American boots on the ground. In reality, Israel receives only a small fraction of American military aid, and most of that was spent in the US to the benefit of the American economy.

The Oslo diplomatic process is the starkest strategic blunder in Israel’s history and one of the worst calamities ever to have afflicted Israelis and Palestinians. Twenty three years after its euphoric launch on the White House lawn, the Oslo ‘peace process’ has substantially worsened the position of both parties, and made the prospects for peace and reconciliation ever more remote.